Chaos Theory
by an REG Omega
Summary: An ambitious and unscrupulous reporter seeks answers in the wake of a series of deadly animal attacks, while the ARC team struggles to contain a new rash of anomalies. Begins at the end of Series 2.
1. Prologue: Exclusive Footage

**Author's Note:** Since to this point I have written exclusively for Halo, I should quickly reassure my readers that I am not abandoning any of my active stories. This story picks up where Series 2 left off, and will incorporate the new characters and some of the creatures which were speculated to appear in Series 3 prior to the release of the trailer. I will try to write this story so it can be understood without having seen the show; still, I should say up-front that there is no doubt in my mind I will not finish this story before the new series airs in February, so I won't be incorporating any new canon material which comes up. Now, without further delay...

* * *

**Prologue: Exclusive Footage**

"I don't know. I don't know what I saw. It was only there for a second. It just came up from beneath the sand, and it took him. Impaled him. Tore him to pieces. I ran without a second look, but I know one thing for sure. Whatever it was... it was alive."

_-- Jeremy Hunt, survivor_

_BTN News Studio  
Central Headquarters  
Present Day_

Mick Harper stopped the playback on the recording, rewound it, and played it again. What the traumatized tourist had said to him then had made little sense, but then, neither did the nature of the attack which had taken place. A pleasant summer day at a popular beach had been shattered by an unexplained animal attack which had left one man dead and a second one missing. Ordinarily such a strange incident would have been the night's lead story, but the attack at the beach paled in comparison to what had happened on the M25 the previous morning.

Stopping the playback on the tape recorder, Harper cracked his knuckles and took a drink of coffee, long since gone cold. Grimacing at the taste, he set the mug aside and returned his attention to the prints which lay scattered on his desk. Few of them had any discernible detail, and only one or two had been of enough quality to be published at the time. There had been no real cameras on site before the incident was contained, and a few quick shots from mobile phones had been all that the panicking rabble of motorists had managed to fire off as they fled their cars. But what they had recorded was unmistakable. A massive elephant, brown in color, had appeared seemingly out of thin air on the motorway and begun pitching cars about in a fury. The incident left five people dead and over a dozen others injured. For the next five days, his station had reported on the animal attack as a tragic freak accident; an escapee from a circus which had faced horrific abuse from its trainers and gone mad as a result. The animal was captured unharmed by wildlife professionals, shipped to a safari park in Africa, and would live out the rest of its life at peace in its natural habitat. At least, that was what officials had told the press. And having nothing else to run on, it was what his and every other news station had reported. The public loved the happy ending, and had been all too quick to let the incident fade from their memory. But for Harper, the explanation the government had given was not enough.

As an investigative journalist, he could not help but feel the incidents were somehow related. The elephant story had received more attention because the animal had caused more damage, but the herbivore had only attacked because it was panicking. Such was not the case with the other story. The creature which had been lurking under the sands of that pleasant beach, whatever it was, had killed those two men for food. But unlike the elephant, there were no pictures to prove anything and only a few traumatized witnesses who even saw it. Every other person who had been there that day had attested that a shark was responsible.

Harper swept the photos on his desk back into a somewhat tidier stack and looked back at the mug in distaste. He would need another cup of coffee. Reaching for the mug, his attention passed over the tape recorder once again and he stopped. There had been something else at the motorway that morning. Someone else. Furrowing his brow, he instead reached over and began to rewind the tape once more. Waiting a few seconds, he stopped the recording and pressed Play.

_"I've never seen an elephant like that,"_ a female witness began._ "It was a monster. And there was that strange light..."_

_"What do you think it is, exactly?" _Harper asked. But then another woman joined the conversation. She demanded to know who he was, bringing an abrupt end to the interview with the witness by sending her off to the hospital.

_"I've seen the pictures,"_ he had told her._ "That thing... it's too big to be an elephant."_

_"You know what? You're right," _the woman jokingly replied. _"It's actually a mammoth."_

_"I could do without the wind-up."_

_"Then stop asking stupid questions."_

_"Something strange is going on here. And one way or another, I'm going to find out what it is."  
_

He stopped the recording, looking up from his desk to the bustling newsroom around him. Dozens of journalists like him working away, each pursuing their own leads. Sports. Politics. The trivialities of pop culture. Recent crimes, or perhaps something lighter to follow after them. In the last three weeks, the news of the sensational animal attacks had been edged out by the most ordinary things, and it galled Harper deeply. Even he had since been reassigned, shifting from story to story on topics which he found he had little interest in.

Seven people dead. Did these attacks not deserve more attention?

If there were to be any follow-up, he would need to conduct a wider investigation. But he would have to break from his current assignment before he could possibly do anything else. Looking behind him to the executive offices at the top of the room, Harper saw his boss on the way back from the break room, and took his chance. Harper stood up from his desk and made his way to the staircase, just barely reaching the top in time to intercept him.

Nursing his danish, Leonard Burke sighed as he saw Harper worming his way towards the stairs. From the look on the man's face, he knew what was coming. The 36-year-old Harper had a reputation for grabbing hold of a story like a rottweiler; a trait which served special investigators very well, but Harper was one to take it a step further. The environment of the newsroom was highly competitive, but this man simply did not know when to give up. Burke tried to put on a receptive look when Harper stepped in front of him. He failed. Undeterred, Harper followed as Burke stepped around him and kept walking.

"Leo, all I'm going to ask is for three minutes of your time."

Burke did not turn. "Whatever you're going to ask, Mick, I don't want to hear it."

"Three weeks ago, an elephant appears on the M25 and starts pitching cars about," Harper said. "Five dead, sixteen wounded." He shoved his way past an intern without looking back. "A day later, a tourist is torn to shreds on a beach in broad daylight by God-only-knows what-"

"The shark, you mean?" Leo said.

"If it _was_ a shark, then why the cover-up?"

Burke wordlessly pulled open the glass door of his office, ushering the reporter in and letting it fall shut behind him before speaking. "Cover-up?"

"You heard my eyewitness," Harper said, "and as I always understood it, sharks don't tend to pluck sunbathers off of dry land. Still, that's besides the point. The animal attacks are not what interest me. The official reaction we've seen to these attacks _is_."

"Where are you going with this?"

"Three weeks ago, we had two fatal animal attacks in as many days. I was on the scene following both of these attacks, Leo. Both times, authorities were present to cordon off the press-"

"That comes as no surprise, Mick. It is no different than the procedure at a typical crime scene."

"Is it standard practice to shut down the mobile network in the vicinity of a typical crime scene? Who has the authority to even do that? I was there. Both locations, zero bars. No calls in or out. No reporters allowed to enter the scene, no witnesses allowed to leave before being debriefed. Don't you think it strange that nobody has footage of that elephant being transported to or released at that preserve? And where are the people that it supposedly escaped from? Whatever is happening, someone is going to great lengths to keep it hidden. They knows what this is, and they don't want to tell us. What connects these dots? What are they hiding, and what should we expect next?"

"And what I'm saying is that this happened _three weeks_ ago, Mick. It's old news. There is no new information, and no base of public interest. We've nothing to gain by digging into it any further. The story's all tied off. It's done. "

Mick slammed a fist on his boss' desk. "These people are _dead_, Burke! That hasn't changed. Their families probably want answers as much as I do. So let me look for them!"

"Will you listen to yourself?" Leo replied. "We are _newsmen_, not private detectives, and I will not let you put this network's reputation at risk by pursuing some wild conspiracy theory. Think about it. Take a few days off. I can't tell you what to do on your own time, Mick, and if you do find something, I'll listen. Find something big, and you might even get a raise out of it. But should you pursue this, I'll have you know that we will not vouch for you if you get yourself into trouble. If you do this, you will be on your own."

Harper took pause. So that was it. Burke would gladly take the story if it came together, but if he wound up in trouble, Burke would step back and let him twist. _That's fine then_, Harper thought, staring at his boss. _I'll get an exclusive to put hair back on your head._

"Yes, sir," Mick said, stifling a grin. "I guess that might be the crux of it. I think I could use some time to unwind after these last few days, anyway."

"Then by all means, take a vacation. Go to the beach."

"I think I will."

"You've got three days."

Harper didn't need to be shown out. Letting the glass door of Burke's office fall shut behind him, he returned to his desk as quickly as he could, pausing only to steady a mug-wielding coworker he bumped into along the way. Upon reaching his desk, he immediately logged off of his computer and began gathering up all of the material he had on the story.

A painful experience from his early career had taught him that such a deadline was not as much time as it seemed. This undertaking would require his full attention for the next three days. But as he swept the messy stack of papers and photographs from his desk into a folder, second thoughts began to cut through his furor. Seven people dead, and possibly more that he did not yet know about. If these incidents were truly part of a cover-up, what kind of people was he dealing with? If the government had hidden these attacks from the public, what would they do to keep such knowledge secret? Exactly how much trouble could he find himself in? Certainly more than he wanted. And even if Harper got the story, the publicity it received might not be enough to protect him, especially if gathering the evidence he needed would require him to break the law.

There was also the matter of the story itself. Harper did not know where to begin. If the incidents were the subject of an ongoing cover-up, then there would certainly be nothing left at the scene of either incident which could be used to build his story. He would need an witness. He would need a witness with the motivation to learn more answers about the attacks, and who would be willing to search for them on his behalf. He would need someone with the skills to do so. And if the search went belly-up, he would need someone in his place to take the fall.

As he swept the papers from his desk into the folder, one fell to the floor. Setting the folder back on the desk, Harper bent down and picked it up. It was a profile of one of the victims of the attacks, a young man who had been bucked by the elephant on the M25 while trying to render aid to another motorist. Listed at the bottom of the page was the deceased victim's next of kin. To Harper's surprise, the victim's brother was an AFO from the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

A sergeant named Danny Quinn.

* * *

_To be continued._


	2. The Great Dying

**Chapter One: The Great Dying**

"One of the most frustrating things about the study of palaeontology is that, by definition, we're always too late. You can commit a lifetime to studying old bones. Fossil eggs, fossil footprints, fossil spore. They can teach us a great deal about how these animals lived, and the world that they lived in. But no matter how much you learn, no matter what you may discover, in the back of your mind there will always be the mocking knowledge that you will die without having ever actually seen one."

_-- Professor Nick Cutter, 1996 lecture notes_

_Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire  
Original anomaly site  
Present Day_

Beneath the silent trees, a hunt was on.

Next to a stand of bushes, Connor Temple crouched, waiting. Despite a chilling gust of autumn wind, sweat was running down his back as he scanned the branches for any sign of movement. Spiting his efforts, the crunch of fallen leaves betrayed his presence with every step. It was close now. He could feel it.

Seeing a flash of movement beneath a nearby shrub, Connor dove forward and thrust his hand underneath it. He earned a mouthful of leaves and a number of scrapes for his efforts, but the gopher-sized animal was already gone. Peering through the branches, he saw his quarry scurrying away only to be snatched up and hoisted into the air, squealing in fright.

"There! Got you!"

Abby Maitland was initially surprised by the strength of the herbivore's struggles to free itself, but quickly gained control of it. What she had caught was a four-legged animal with leathery skin and a flat, dull beak between two miniaturized tusks. Its beady black eyes flared as it uselessly kicked against her grip, and Abby shifted her arms to keep from dropping it. Its resolve was already waning.

"Easy there, girl," she said. Moments later a disheveled Connor stood up, gagging lightly. His jacket and trousers sported new mud stains, and bits of leaves were stuck in his hair. "You all right?" she laughed.

"Yeah," Connor said, tearing his gaze from the pesky animal in her arms. "Squirrely things, aren't they?"

Abby grinned in triumph. In a geek moment earlier that afternoon, Connor had been compelled to share everything he knew about the creatures with her. It seemed he knew everything there was to know about Diictodon except how to handle them - that was _her_ forte.

"_Three_, now," she said. "Looks like you'll have to play catch-up."

"Give me some credit," Connor replied, brushing his shirt. "I drove him towards you."

"You're getting rather good at that."

"It's a team effort."

As she wiped sweat from her forehead the creature seized its chance, giving a solid kick which left it lolling helplessly in her right arm with its head hanging towards the ground. Connor stomped over the shrub in front of him to catch it, but Abby deftly crouched, capturing it with both arms while remaining cautious of its pointy tusks. Both of them knew that any cut or scrape from a creature would provoke an unwelcome visit from the nearest medic and some very painful antibiotic shots, a procedure with which both of them had been acquainted and neither wished to repeat. As fate would have it, the scuffle did not go unnoticed.

"You okay over there?" an SAS medic shouted.

"We're fine," Abby insisted a bit loudly. "Caught another one, that's all."

Smirking, the medic waved in acknowledgment and turned away.

"How many do you think are left?" Connor asked her.

"Not enough to get you out of dishes tonight," she answered smugly.

"Eh... best out of seven?"

Abby stared.

"Never mind."

Seconds later, a soldier with a small wire cage claimed the Diictodon from them, trudging through the undergrowth towards the makeshift assembly area. In a roughly circular pattern, a dozen more soldiers clad in stab-proof vests could be seen beating the bushes in search of the elusive little animals, as they had all been for the last two hours. It was impossible to know how many were still on the loose, and the miserable heat had put everyone on edge. By this time of year temperatures rarely rose to ten degrees Celsius, with frost growing overnight on the leaf-bare trees. But this particular part of the forest was now smothered by an unnatural blanket of hot, dry air which the autumn wind could only cut through with great effort. Oddly enough, the hot wind blew outward in all directions from one central point in the forest - the same point from which the odd half-mammal, half-reptile animals had originated, and through which they would have to go once again.

The anomaly.

Standing in the assembly area, Professor Nick Cutter stared at the glowing apparition, spinning before him like so many pieces of shattered glass. It spat in the face of modern science and defied the imagination, but somehow, that glimmering threshold was now all that separated Glouchestershire from the earth as it had existed during the Permian period, over two hundred and fifty million years ago. The Anomaly Research Centre had been established in response to their sudden appearance, but even after two years of study, little more was known than the day they first appeared, despite the cost of millions of pounds and over a dozen lives.

As time went on, the work had taken a personal toll. Stephen's death had been a major blow to the team, moreso to Nick than he would ever be willing to admit. But in the weeks that followed, the team's resiliency had been encouraging. Abby and Connor still found enjoyment in the work, even if it was for entirely different reasons. And Lester was still... well, Lester. Out of the entire team, it was Jenny who worried him the most. Her professionalism had never flagged in the wake of Stephen's death, but she still refused to speak of the surrounding incident.

Learning that her entire life was the result of an accident in time was difficult enough to handle. Knowing that Nick had been in love with the woman she had been before that accident had only made it worse. And it had all happened because of this very anomaly. The team had refused any time off after Stephen died, but Nick could not blame Jenny for not coming here today. Part of him did not want to be here, either.

An animal squeal behind him heralded the arrival of a new cage. Turning, Cutter nodded to the soldier now standing next to the growing stack.

"Professor," the soldier said.

"Captain," he acknowledged. "What do you think of your new job?"

"Not exactly what I had expected." Looking at the odd animals, SAS Captain Andrew Becker decided he would be glad to see them go. He had begun his work for the ARC just two weeks before, a position which had been described as secretive and very high-risk. Other members of the security detail had spoken to him of the dangerous animals they had encountered in the past, but it was an aspect of the work to which Becker had not yet been exposed. This was his third anomaly, and the first through which any kind of animal had emerged. It was hard not to feel a little foolish traipsing about the woods in full body armor searching for rodents, but having reviewed the kinds of Permian predators which could materialize without warning, he knew it was a precaution they had to take. "I can't complain, sir," he continued, "I guess you could say I'm hoping for some action."

"Do you want my advice?"

Becker blinked.

"Don't," Cutter quietly said. The captain shrugged.

The professor glanced from the anomaly to the collection of animals they had recaptured. Nine cages were there now, each containing an unruly Diictodon which barked and snapped at the others, their squabbling in no way deterred by their inability to reach each other through the bars. The late Permian was a harsh time in Earth's history, its inhabitants having to make do with little food and water. There was plenty of both in the forest of Dean, and it was no surprise that the Diictodon had been tempted through by the promise of greener pastures. But Diictodon were not adapted to survive in the frigid autumn temperatures which existed beyond the bubble of warm air which the anomaly had created, and they had not strayed beyond it. But the anomaly's magnetic field had already begun to weaken. When it finally closed, as they inevitably did, the temperature would drop back to normal and any Diictodon left in the forest would slowly freeze to death. It was a risk the ARC could not afford to take.

Nick knew all too well the consequences of altering the past.

"Captain," he said, "I think it's time we tied off the recovery effort. We haven't seen or heard any others for the last fifteen minutes. The magnetic field has started to weaken - if this anomaly's past behavior is any sign, we have about half an hour before it seals again."

"It's your call," Becker said, turning towards the forest. "All right, lads, let's wrap it up!"

Over the next minute, Abby and Connor approached the assembly area along with the SAS detachment. Without prompting, the soldiers began loading the cages onto a plastic hand trolley. With collection over, all that remained was to send the animals back where they came from. And for Cutter, that would mean going through.

"Professor," Connor said, "are all of them accounted for?"

"Looks like it," Cutter said, turning. "Captain, are you ready for a trip?"

Becker, the image of preparedness, adjusted the shoulder strap of his pack and pointed his M4 carbine towards the anomaly. "Not really," he said.

Cutter smiled. "Good answer."

# # # # # # #

_Northern Pangaea  
Late Permian period_

In the midday sun, a steady breeze swept over parched earth as two Diictodon jabbered at each other, bickering over the cactus-like plant between them, a rare source of water. Surrounding them, corkscrew-shaped burrows plowed over a meter into the ground, each of them independent from each other and home to mated pairs of the gopher-sized creatures. Though they frequently quarreled amongst themselves over food and water, the community was quick to warn each other of approaching danger. When the strange anomaly just beyond the colony's borders began to expand, one of them cried out the alarm.

As Captain Andrew Becker emerged from the anomaly with his gun drawn, Diictodon scattered across the ground to the nearest burrows, chattering anxiously. One or two ran to the wrong burrows, and were quickly put off by angry neighbors who sent them scurrying to the nearest unoccupied hole. By the time the captain had fully emerged, the Diictodon had vanished completely.

Even as a veteran of desert combat, the sudden transition came to Becker as a shock. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sudden light of day. Compared even to the forest from which he came, the air here was hot and dry. Parched cycads and tree ferns surrounded the bowl-shaped depression they had emerged in, its basin peppered with desert scrub. There were no animals in sight, and he could not see over the surrounding hills, meaning no predators could see them either. So far, so good.

Seconds later, the professor emerged from the anomaly with the hand cart, bearing its load of chattering Diictodon. Hearing them, a number of heads poked up from the ground, squawked in disapproval, and ducked back into their respective holes. The air hummed with the sound of insects, but Cutter paid them no mind. Biting insects, and the risk of disease that they posed, were still millions of years off. High above their heads against the glare of the sun, the moon was visibly larger. It was a younger world.

"It's something, isn't it?" Cutter said in awe.

"That it is. But I vote we do this as quickly as possible," the captain replied. He felt surprisingly unfazed by the enormity of it.

"Right," Cutter said. He turned his attention to the Diictodon burrows. "Keep an eye on them. Make sure no others make a run for the anomaly. I'm going to take these ones a little further off to discourage them from running right back."

"All right."

"I might wander around for a bit after we're through," Cutter said, patting his radio. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, give me a call. If I'm not back in twenty, I give you permission to knock me upside the head, and drag me back kicking and screaming."

Becker grinned as Cutter pushed the cart along. The professor knew he had a tendency to dawdle in these environments.

A hundred meters from the anomaly, the professor brought the cart to a halt and lifted the first cage off of the stack. Inside, the Diictodon cocked his head at him curiously and barked. Turning the cage before him, Cutter inspected the animal one last time. The creature turned to face him with every movement, thwarting the effort. With a chuckle, the professor set the cage on the dusty ground and opened the door. The animal darted out without hesitation, diving into a nearby patch of scrub from which it watched him cautiously.

In short order, the cages were opened, and soon the surrounding terrain was teeming with beady, suspicious eyes. In less than a day, their excursion to the future would be forgotten, but they had each returned with full bellies, which could ultimately help them to survive. Glancing back at the anomaly, he saw Captain Becker standing watch, gently kicking dust in the direction of a Diictodon which made a run for the anomaly. He was relaxed, for his first incursion. Lester had chosen Captain Ryan's replacement well.

As he picked up the final cage, Cutter hesitated. Looking to the top of the sloping hill, Cutter heard the distinct bellow of a Scutasaurus. After a moment's consideration, his curiosity got the better of him, and he turned his back on the anomaly site. There was time enough left for a walk.

An extensive valley came into view at the crest of the hill, which was topped with a large rock that looked too inviting to pass up. As he approached, a Coelurosauravus which had been sunning itself there chirped at him, spread its wings, and flew away. Setting down the diictodon's cage, the professor stretched his aching back and sat down a moment to rest. In the valley below him, a small herd of Scutosaurus were digging for roots along a dry creek bed. The Scuts gave cautious berth to a Gorgonopsid further up the creek, which was apparently feeding on one of their number. Nearby, smaller therapsids which Cutter could not readily identify darted about, fighting over the few scraps of meat they had managed to steal away.

It was only after travelling through the anomalies that he had fully realized what a hazy image the fossil record could provide. In light of the immediate danger they posed to people in the present, it was easy to lose sight of the scientific opportunity that the anomalies afforded. He had studied creatures such as these for his entire professional life, and now looking upon them in their natural environment, Nick could not have placed a name to half of the animals he saw.

Cutter looked up as a gust of wind swept over the hill, carrying with it the faint odor of sulfur. Looking to the horizon, he saw volcanoes belching soot into the air in three separate directions. Beyond them, barren wastes ringed the entire horizon. This was a shrinking oasis; an island of vegetation in a sea of sand. Cutter knew that Scutasaurus were native only to the region of Pangaea which would one day become Russia, and wondered with some alarm if he was near the Siberian Traps.

For they were, all of them, doomed. The Scuts, the Gorgonopsids, even the insects now humming in the air. The Permian period had ended with the single worst mass extinction that the world had ever known, marking the disappearance of over ninety percent of all species living on Earth and leaving the ecosystem of the early Triassic so mangled that a single genus of Dicynodonts would account for almost ninety percent of all land vertebrates. Both the land and the oceans would be struck, and entire classes of animals which had been dominant for hundreds of millions of years would be lost forever. There was still little agreement as to what caused the extinction; volcanic activity, an impact event, even a distant supernova had been offered as possibilities. What was known for certain was that, as with every other such event, only the littlest creatures - with the littlest appetites - had ultimately survived.

A sharp growl drew Cutter's attention back to the diictodon, butting against the side of its cage. His species would be among the precious survivors, but even this creature was a mystery. Diictodon fossils had never been found in Russia. Cutter would have loved to learn more about them, but above all else the anomalies had taught him the importance of staying out of history's way. It was time to let it go. Brushing his pants as he stood, the professor opened the cage, and the groundhog-sized animal darted out of it with a waddling gait that was funny to watch. Grunting, the creature made for the cover of the nearest patch of desert scrub. Cutter began to turn away when a pained squeak met his ears. Looking back, his eyes grew wide.

Perched beneath the scrub was a future predator, grown to the size of a small child. The diictodon's body lay on the ground a meter before it, needle-like punctures forming a bloody ring around its neck. The eyeless predator watched Nick intently, sizing him up with a burst of echolocating clicks. Cutter did not move, did not blink. The demon-faced, flightless bat was still too small to pose a serious threat to him, but it would not be for long. How the hell did it get here?

_This is what changed the past,_ he realized. Cutter's mind was flooded with anger as it all came back to him. Four months ago, an anomaly to Earth's unknowable future had opened in the past. Four months ago, he had ventured to the Permian after an incursion by these animals had left six people dead, hoping to stem them off at their source. And four months ago, he had returned to find the world he knew completely turned on its head. Since that day, there had been so many tragedies. Claudia's disappearance. Stephen's death. The carnage borne from Oliver Leek's maniacal dreams of power. None of it had been meant to happen, and now Nick had been given a chance to sweep it all away. He could never have dreamed of having this opportunity, and could never expect it to present itself again.

The professor unholstered his pistol slowly, praying his movements would not scare the creature off. The predator visibly reacted to the sharp click as he chambered a round, but did not retreat to the safety of the brush. As Cutter lined up the sights on the center of its forehead, the creature emitted another burst of clicks, shrinking back but not looking away. His finger tightened on the trigger, but looking at the animal, something told him to stop.

_Why is it still sitting there?_

Cutter blinked, confused by his own reluctance. The animal clearly recognized him as a threat, and yet it stood its ground, looking at him... looking him directly in the face. Helen had said these creatures were intelligent; how intelligent no one could really know. Was it studying him? Shaking himself, Cutter leaned forward, tightening his grip on the weapon which now held the animal's keen attention. It growled in defiance, taking a step backwards but not turning to leave. One shot. Just one shot was all it would take to restructure the planet's entire evolutionary history, and return things the way they were.

_But what's to say this time that we're not just going to be wiped out?_

A chill ran up the professor's spine. Stephen had said that to him, back when Nick had tried to stay behind the first time. But looking back, Nick knew what he had done then was stupid; his emotions had gotten the better of him. How could he, in the Cretaceous, have hoped to right what went wrong over a hundred million years before that?

_You could change a million things and not get Claudia back_.

No. Not this time. Now it was simple. This single animal was the cause of it all, and its kind had no more right to be here than they had had to be in-

# # # # # # #

_"We've got company!" Connor shouted._

_The chirping of the oscilloscope mingled with the sound of a massive animal clamoring across the roof of the warehouse. SAS soldiers scanned the walls for the creature, gun-mounted flashlights casting shadows among the scattered crates._

_Stephen turned to face Connor. "Where the hell is it?"_

_Five future predators, helpless infants all, lay on the ground shrieking as their father tackled SAS corporal Lance Higgins. In the tight confines of the warehouse, none of the other soldiers could get a clear shot as the corporal cried out. With stunning agility the creature sprang up and latched onto the ceiling, snarling at the gathered soldiers; seeking out its next victim. Deciding not to wait, Cutter gripped one of the infants by the neck and hauled it screaming from the warehouse._

_With the father in hot pursuit, Cutter entered a greenhouse. The door at the far end was locked. Trapped, he turned to face the predator which had appeared in the opposite doorway, cutting off his escape. Shrieking in fright, the infant clutched in Cutter's hand struggled and scratched at him, but Cutter's attention remained fixed on the larger creature before him._

_The creature's father advanced cautiously, snarling in anger with its attention fixed on the abducted infant. Slowly, deliberately, Cutter raised the gun..._

# # # # # # #

Rearing up, the young predator snarled at him angrily. Cutter stepped backwards, loosening the death grip he had held on the pistol.

_Does it remember me?_ Cutter thought. _My God, is that it?_ _Does it _remember_ me?_

The professor looked from the predator to the poor diictodon lying dead on the ground between them. That creature had been meant to live. But that life, and the lives of any offspring it would have produced, were now irrevocably lost. There was no telling how much the young predator had already altered the past in its bid to survive. But without Nick's intervention it, too, would live out its entire life here. However much he despised the thought of it, the world in which Nick now lived had come to be as a result of this creature's influence. What kind of world would be waiting for him on the other side of the anomaly if he changed that yet again? Cutter did not know what it would be, but his choice was already made. Regardless of the outcome, he knew that the decision would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Nick lowered the gun.

Almost on cue, the creature leaned forward, gripping the Diictodon's body in its mouth and retreating back into the brush. For a moment he heard the rustling of branches. Then it was gone.

Holstering his pistol, the professor gathered up the empty cage and turned back towards the anomaly site. His knees buckled before he had walked ten paces, and he sat on the dusty ground, overwhelmed.

It was too late now to mend the past. It always had been.

Claudia was gone.

* * *

_To be continued._


	3. Ripple Effect

**Chapter Two: Ripple Effect**

"Do you know what this is? It's a Sarcopterygian. No trace of them in the fossil record for seventy million years, and then suddenly one of them just pops up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Totally inexplicable in modern evolutionary terms. You see, Darwin provides most of the answers. It's the pieces that don't fit that interest me."  
_-- Professor Nick Cutter_

_"Professor?"_

Nick sat motionless as the hot wind swept around him; his eyes stinging with tears and his breath caught in ragged gasps. Looking towards the shrub again, he prayed that the interloping predator would still be there; that it was not too late to change his mind. Peering through the tangled mass of dried sticks, there was now nothing to be seen. Not even a footprint.

_"Professor?"_ his radio squawked.

The animal was gone, and with it had gone every last hope of ever seeing Stephen Hart or Claudia Brown again. As he stared at the empty wire cage beside him, a strange, irrational hope entered his mind, bringing a grin to his face. That wasn't entirely true, now, was it? The time line hadn't been changed, now, had it? Jenny would still be there.

With that thought, his grief was swept aside by a wave of abject horror. _Oh, my God, Jenny!_

_"Professor!"_

Nick shot to his feet, clawing at the radio on his belt. After fumbling with it in his hands for a moment, he found the transmission switch. "Yes! Becker, what is it?"

_"You have the time?"_

Cutter felt a sudden flush of panic. A glance at his watch told him he was not yet late, but the fear did not go away. Taking up the cage, he began down the hill, creating a mini-avalanche of loose ash with every step. "I'm on my way," he called back.

_"Good,"_ the captain continued. _"There's something here you need to see."_

"What is it?"

_"Not sure. Whatever it was, it doesn't look like it belonged here. I think you should have a look."_

With that, his pace quickened. His first thought was that the captain had found some remnant of the human camp left behind from Cutter's last incursion, but as he took in his surroundings, he realized it was impossible. Some anomalies moved when they re-opened. This was the third time he had entered the Permian anomaly, and for once he had not emerged in the same place - the anomaly had moved, meaning the camp was likely miles off. Still, his intrigue in Becker's find had not entirely driven off the terror he had felt seconds earlier.

Had he fired that shot, he could very well have erased Jennifer Lewis from history.

Placing the cage atop the others on the handcart, he began dragging it across the rough terrain faster than he should have. He had to know. He had to go back through the anomaly and find out if she was alright. The rattling of cages on the handcart abruptly cut out as the professor dropped the grip into the dirt, gasping as he jogged to the captain's side. Once he was sure the professor was not being chased, Becker pointed, and Nick's breath caught as he saw what the captain had found.

It was a skull, slightly bigger than a man's and wider than it was long. Partially buried on its side in the loose ground, Cutter could see dry, stringy tissue still clinging to the interior. As he walked up to it, he knew that the captain's assessment was correct - the highly specialized dental structure could only belong to a mammal, and there were no mammals in this era. Crouching by it, he began gently sweeping dirt from around its edges. The dirt came away cleanly, and a moment later he lifted the skull free, and jumped back in surprise.

"Macrochiroptera," he muttered to himself. The puncture marks on the occipital bone indicated it had fallen prey to another animal, possibly one of the small therapsids he had witnessed in the creek bed. Hunting for Diictodon, it would have been distracted. But there could be no mistake. The skull belonged to a future predator; a younger one than the animal he had just encountered. Its sibling, perhaps? Just how many of these animals had been left behind? He stared into the creature's vestigial eye sockets for a moment, digesting the question, when he saw something else crawling over the skull. He leaned in. A tiny, wingless insect; no more than half a centimeter long. Comprised of three distinct body segments, its thin legs quickly propelled it to the crown of the skull, where it stopped briefly to clean its antennae. It was such a common sight that the professor took a moment to realize just how out of place it was here.

"Formicidae," he recited, barely above a whisper. A common garden ant. Native to six of Earth's seven continents, they evolved from wasp-like ancestors at some point in the early Cretaceous - one hundred and twenty million years from now. At least, that was how it was meant to have happened. Looking at the ground near the skull, he quickly spotted a second one, then a third and a fourth and a fifth.

"Is something wrong, professor?" Becker asked.

"Get me out of here," Nick quietly replied. "Take me home."

# # # # # # #

_Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England  
Present Day_

Leaning against the passenger door of one of the trucks, Connor Temple poked idly at the touch-screen computer mounted on the console. Constructed to his specifications and coded under his supervision, it looked like an ordinary SatNav, but it also integrated data from the ARC with the GPS display. The third-generation detector had performed beautifully in its first field test, offering information that the hand-held detectors did not. But now, those same readings were making him nervous.

The magnetic field and radio noise generated by anomalies were the only indicators of their strength, and they could hold steady for hours or days. Once they began to weaken, however, they did so at a predictable rate, allowing the ARC to calculate within seconds when an anomaly would close. This figure was shown as a timer on the display with an ominous spinning hourglass. Even now, Nick and Captain Becker had under three minutes.

He began anxiously drumming his fingers on the console, staring at the rotating hourglass as the seconds slipped away. It was only half an hour ago that he had been talking with Becker, after Abby had found the paintball gun in the back of the truck. It was something he had been working on, Connor had explained, a new way to tranquilize creatures the team encountered. After the assignment of the new security detail, there had been a number of disputes over the use of live ammunition against creatures. It had seemed to Connor that the single-shot design and long reload time of traditional dart guns were what Becker and his men most objected to, so he had improvised a work-around. Taking the gun from her, Connor had shown them both the modified ammunition, designed to break on contact and allow an epicutaneous sedative to be absorbed directly through the skin. Both of them had been skeptical, and rightly so. Becker did not believe that it could work against an animal with thick fur or an exoskeleton, and Abby had asked how many times a large creature would need to be shot to administer the right dosage. They were good questions, and for once Connor had answers. Becker had looked more than a little silly aiming a shiny green paintball gun at a tree with an M4 strapped over his shoulder, and Abby had made an exaggerated show of twisting out of the way when Connor put the tranquilizer gun back in the truck, but the captain had promised to try it for real once Connor was sure he had worked the kinks out. To Connor, it had meant a lot. Even Stephen wouldn't have shown that much good faith.

Sighing, he glanced at the anomaly in worried anticipation. Any moment now they would come back. They had to. He couldn't do this on his own.

"Hey."

Connor nearly gave himself whiplash as he turned around. Abby was leaning against the truck as well, in position to see the screen over his shoulder, though giving no signal that she had been looking. "What's on your mind?"

"Oh, nothing much," he said, composing himself. "Just... new kit."

"The detector upgrade?"

"Working nicely. The truck hasn't exploded quite yet. I think Lester might even budget enough to install this in the rest of our trucks... if he likes the results." He grinned helplessly as he ran out of things to say, and she kindly smiled back.

"It's all right. They'll be back, Conn."

Seconds later, a sound from the anomaly caught their attention. As if on cue, the glowing apparition expanded, and through the rift stepped an unscratched Captain Andrew Becker followed by a dusty and somewhat bewildered Nick Cutter, absently toting a handcart loaded with empty cages. A medic moved in to inspect them as Connor and Abby left the truck, but they were clearly unharmed. Nick's mobile was already to his ear before they reached him.

"You cut it really close there," Connor grinned.

"Damn," Nick replied, terminating the call. "It's engaged."

Connor blinked. "Good to see you, too."

"Who is?" Abby asked.

"Jenny," came the breathless reply. "Have you spoken to Jenny today?"

"Of course I did," she continued. "You were there, remember? She called from the ARC while you were out. Lester wants to discuss something with you."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Connor asked.

With a slight rush of air, the pulsating anomaly shuddered and winked out of existence behind them, and the assembly area grew suddenly dark. Generator-powered lights which had been moved into position beforehand snapped on automatically, and Cutter looked at his fellow team members. There had been no abrupt changes in wardrobe. No familiar faces gone missing. No Oliver Leeks conjured from thin air. Whatever effects, if any, his most recent excursion to the past might have had, he could not see them yet. Everything seemed in order, and with the anomaly gone, it wasn't as if he would be able to change anything, anyway. After a moment's thought, Cutter pocketed his phone. "Yeah," he sighed. "I guess I am."

"Let's get this site cleared," Becker ordered. "Load our equipment on the trucks. We leave no trace."

As Nick watched, bedraggled soldiers began carting away equipment from the assembly area and packing it into the trucks they had arrived in. Connor and Abby loaded cages into the back seat of one of the trucks as Becker saw to the generator. Within seconds, a gust of wind swept through the area, erasing the bubble of warm air the anomaly had created around itself. Pulling up his collar in response to the sudden biting cold, Nick turned one last time to look at the place where the anomaly had been. Though relieved about Jenny, he wouldn't be entirely pacified until he saw her again, face-to-face. Still, the thought of what might have happened today was stirring up old fears, and Cutter knew he could not let the incident go.

Catching himself, the professor forced his feet forward, and joined his teammates packing up equipment. It was a bad habit, standing around thinking while the others worked. He had started doing it immediately after Stephen's death, but no one on the team had called him on it yet. Maybe they respected him too much. The professor felt a pang of guilt as he walked among them. How could he have even considered doing it? On some level, he had to have known that any change he made to the past would have had consequences for them as well. Would it have been any better to come back and find Claudia returned, at the cost of Abby, or Connor, or one of Becker's men? Was Jennifer Lewis any less human than Claudia Brown had been? How could he have been so selfish?

"Cutter," Abby suddenly said, touching his shoulder. Seeing the uncertain look on her face, the professor followed her glance towards the snuffling sound which now came from behind a decaying log ten feet away. The sound quickly stopped as Nick moved towards the log. From a shallow, incomplete burrow in the dirt beneath it, Cutter could see the tiny jewels of eyes peering back at him. Wordlessly, the professor crouched next to the burrow and reached in, its occupant's shriek sending uneasy looks between the other members of the team.

# # # # # # #

_Lisburn, Ireland_

For Danny Quinn, home was a sparsely-decorated second-story flat overlooking the M1. He usually spent as little time there as possible, preferring evenings on the town with his fellow officers. Since the accident, his nights were spent alone.

A seventeen-year veteran of the force, Quinn was no stranger to loss. Over the course of his career, he had seen three of his fellow RUC officers, men who were like brothers, killed in the line of duty, two by a gunman, and a third by a kerosene bomb in his own home. He had seen and committed acts of violence in numerous clashes with various factions, but in recent years the violence had ebbed. When Danny learned that his brother Edward had died in a bizarre traffic accident, he had taken it better than others in his family. But the nature of the accident, and the circumstances surrounding it, were proving frustratingly difficult to unravel. Difficult though it was, the loss he could take. It was the cover story he could not stand.

Having been ordered to take a leave of absence for bereavement, Quinn had instead buried himself in the task of researching the attack. The press had towed the line of the elephant being an abused circus escapee, and that was how Quinn's search had begun. His occupation gave him access to more information than appeared in the mainstream news. Police reports. Witness testimonies. He had spoken over the phone with relatives of several other victims, and even a few of the witnesses themselves, but none of those who were willing to talk had shared anything useful. A call placed to the DEFRA Animal Health and Welfare Office earned him an emailed map after two days of the route the animal had taken from the M25 capture site to an elephant sanctuary in Tanzania, but it was not until the second time Quinn contacted the port authority there that they were able to confirm such a transfer had taken place. The first time he called, no record of a ship could be found, and he still could not track down the ship's captain. Danny did not like conspiracy theories, but the roadblocks to his investigation were very suspicious. The more walls that appeared in his way, the harder it was to believe the story as it had been reported.

It was shaping up to be a long week.

His mobile began chiming. It was probably Claire. For Danny, the loss of his younger brother was hard, but for her it had been much worse. Twenty-six was too young to be a widow.

Sighing, Danny answered it.

"Hello?"

"Sergeant Daniel Quinn?" a man's voice asked.

"Yes?"

"Ralph Doren," Harper introduced himself, "BTN evening news. I was wondering if I could have a moment of your-"

Quinn immediately killed the connection and threw the phone down on his bed in disgust. There had never been any doubt in his mind that, sooner or later, the vultures would begin to circle. He knew all too well the impact that prying journalists could have on relatives of the victims of violent crime. Seconds later his phone began ringing again, and Quinn's disgust turned to anger as he realized that Claire may have been contacted by this man already. Without another moment's delay, he picked it up and answered it.

"Hello?"

"I can appreciate your reservations, Mr. Quinn," Harper continued, "but first you must understand-"

"No," Quinn cut him off. "Listen to me, you ambulance-chasing son of a bitch. You stay away from me, and you stay away from her. This is a personal matter, and I will not let you turn our grief into inner-fold fodder for a leering public. I will obtain a court order if necessary. If I find out that you approached Claire..."

"You can call her and confirm I haven't. Believe me when I say I have no interest in exploiting you or your situation," Harper calmly replied. "It is not in the public's interest to know where you were when you heard the news, or how it feels to have your whole world torn apart. Your grief is none of their business. But it is their right to know what actually happened, and who was behind it. That is why I called you, Mr. Quinn. Out of all the witnesses, out of all the relatives, out of all of the survivors, that is why I contacted you."

Quinn was still fighting the urge to disconnect, but something stayed his hand. There was something wrong with the animal attack. His own investigation told him that, but he did not know what. "You can spare me the stump speech, Mr. Doren," Quinn replied. "What do you want?"

"Last week, you contacted BTN and asked if we had any unpublished material regarding the attack."

"I did. You people never called me back."

"This is larger than you know, Mr. Quinn. Turn on your computer."

Hesitantly at first, the sergeant walked over to his desk. Sweeping a few case files to the side, he sat down and opened his MacBook. His email held three new messages, each carrying attachments. Opening the first, a number of images appeared on his screen showing the elephant on the M25. The pictures were of low quality, having been captured by retreating motorists with mobile phones, but in a few of the shots the animal was standing still enough for details to be resolved. The first thing that struck Danny was the size of the animal. Its shoulder blade came nearly as high as the top of a parked tanker lorry, and in one shot it had clearly lifted a car off of the ground with its tusks alone. This was no ordinary elephant. Anyone could tell that at first glance. So, then, what was it? A mutation? An experiment? Animals like that simply did not exist.

"Why was none of this published?" he demanded. "What do you people know? What-"

He glanced at the phone in his hand. Doren had hung up.

Opening the second attachment, a scanned government form filled his screen. Danny flushed as he realized the document bore the seal of the Ministry of Defence, but saw no indication that the form was confidential. What could the Ministry of Defence have had to do with such an outlandish incident? After reading a few lines, he realized the document was a DA-notice addressing the M25 incident specifically. Defence did not want any more information released to the public than necessary.

The sergeant shook his head in disbelief. The third email contained a compressed hyper-link and a single sound file. Setting down the phone, Danny played it.

"You're sure you're not mistaken?" Doren plied.

"I was just a few feet away from him, man, no way." The younger man, though shaken, sounded insulted by the question. "I don't care what everyone else is saying. _I_ was actually there, and I saw what I saw. My mates and I, we were maybe ten, fifteen meters up the beach during a low tide. This pasty sod was sunbathing just a short ways off from us, blaring his 80's funk on the radio. I told him to shut it off, and that's when it happened. I don't know if that thing was buried there from before or what."

"What did you see?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I saw. It was only there for a second. It just came up from beneath the sand, and it took him. Impaled him. Tore him to pieces. I ran without a second look, but I know one thing for sure. Whatever it was... it was alive."

"Did you see the second victim?"

"No. Everyone scattered when it happened. Me and my mates, we got the hell out of there. Up the embankment, off of the sand. One of my friends jumped back down a few minutes later to grab his mobile, and his girlfriend thought she saw movement under the sand heading towards him, but no. There was total chaos. We never saw it again. We tried to call for help, but the network must have been jammed up or something. We just wanted to go home and forget it happened."

"How would you describe the creature?"

"I don't know. Claws. Armor. Legs, lots of legs. Fast. And it was _huge._ It was like nothing I ever saw before._"_

"A meter or more?"

"It was bigger than him."

The eyewitness' account continued to play in the background as Danny began fiercely sifting through the image files Doren had sent, his mind racing with new questions. He had never thought of the M25 attack as anything but an isolated incident. That the government had gotten involved was suspicious, but the second attack made it a pattern. Who was behind this? Danny tempered himself. At this point, he had no proof that the recording he was hearing was legitimate. This could be some elaborate ruse. None of the pictures the journalist had sent him matched the account he was hearing. After exhausting the material that was sent to him, at last he clicked on the hyper-link in the third email. In a new window, an article from BTN-Online quickly loaded. _Two Die in Shark Attack at Saunton Sands_, dated two days after the incident on the M25.

Quinn picked up the phone and dialled.

Five hundred and thirty kilometres away, a patron at a popular London café turned his head in confusion as one of the waste bins began ringing.

* * *

_To be continued..._


End file.
